This invention relates to apparatus and processes for increasing efficiency of restaurants using pneumatic food product transportation systems.
Fast food restaurants are a phenomenon of modern life for many reasons, all of which create incentives to dine out more often while spending less time in the process, but not with a sacrifice in the quality of the dining experience. Customers increasingly demand more convenience, speedy service, and high quality at a reasonable price, and success falls on those restaurants which accommodate these desires. Fast food restaurants accordingly endeavor to meet these challenges with innovative ideas.
One concept employed by several major contenders in the fast food industry is the use of two drive-thru windows. After the customer orders at a menu board, he or she pays at the first window where an employee takes payment, makes change, and enters order entry information. The customer proceeds to the second window where an employee delivers the requested food products. A variation on this theme adds a second order board, which is spaced at an interval that is intended to allow two cars simultaneously to order from the two separate boards. However, variations in vehicle length, unforeseen and complex purchase requirements, and different driver habits affect the effectiveness of this model.
Another approach incorporates conveyor apparatus for taking payment from the point of order and delivering the food products at the same point of order while the customer waits in the car. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,311,211, for instance, which discloses a packaged food delivery system having multiple ingress and egress lanes with remote dispensing stations. Packaged food is transported from a central site to remote dispensing stations using an overhead electrically driven carrier for transporting a gimballed tray carrying money and food products. Variations on this structure include multiple drive-thru lanes with a variety of order points and delivery points. Such systems obviously present problems when subjected to the fast food business. First, the conveyor system is mechanically intricate, subject to the elements, and thus prone to mechanical failure. Food contents also tend to foul the mechanism; items such as soft drinks and french fries may spill between point of departure and delivery at the customer's vehicle. Such conveyor systems are also positioned overhead and are therefore less pleasing aesthetically while exposed to vandals and the elements. Errant drivers of large trucks, campers, vans and those who stray from the right of way also present obvious complications for such systems.
A recent trend is the double drive-thru fast food restaurant concept, in which a small limited menu restaurant is situated on a site which allows for two drive-thru lanes, one on each side of the building. The restaurant features two order boards, one for each lane, and which correspond to two drive-thru windows at which the payment is taken, change given, and the food products delivered. These double drive-thru restaurants generally do not offer inside seating, but they do offer walk-up ordering from the front of the building and outside seating on picnic-type tables in a landscaped area of the site. One disadvantage arising from this concept is that the drive-thru window on the secondary side requires that the customer pay, take change and receive food from the passenger side of the vehicle. Customers often find leaning across the passenger seat to receive the food items unappealing.
Serving multiple drive-thru customers quickly and efficiently has long been a goal of the fast food industry and unusual concepts continue to be offered to meet that goal. U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,754 addresses that issue by providing a building layout that offers three drive-thru windows access through a single ingress lane with two order boards and three egress lanes to facilitate traffic flow. At first glance, this concept seems to accomplish several facets of the challenges that the multiple drive-thru scheme seeks to address. However, experience and careful review show that this approach presents a potential for vehicle accidents created as customers who have placed their orders at one of the two order boards attempt to overtake other vehicles already at one of the delivery windows in order to reach their respective delivery window. Parking lot traffic seems to be chaotic in any event, which is only increased by the uncertainty and multiple stops and starts. Additionally, customers often feel intimidated with complicated lane changing and navigational challenges which are not immediately apparent when all they seek to do is to buy lunch. While all of these concepts are intriguing, the issue of accommodating faster and more efficient fast food delivery in a relatively simple manner has failed to be adequately addressed.